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CREATED FOR PLEASURE




While the Puritans contributed greatly to the spiritual DNA of our country, one of their unfortunate legacies is the tendency some had of viewing all pleasure as evil. These attitudes have


 

stayed with American Christians for generations … if something is enjoyable, it is viewed with suspicion and disdain. How could something be godly and enjoyable at the same time? One of our staff members remembers his Bible college professor explaining how he was raised believing that anything pleasurable was sinful. During his childhood he was never allowed to play any sport that involved a ball. “Daddy wouldn’t let us play basketball or base- ball,” the professor explained. “We’d always ask him how he knew those things were a sin, and he’d tell us, ‘If it’s round, it’s wrong!’”

Of course, we’d like to think we’ve outgrown these kinds of attitudes, and indeed most of the Church has loosened its legalistic grip on things; but we have retained the core belief that things that give us pleasure, even emotional pleasure, are somehow wrong and must be rejected. The result is a Church full of people with genuine God-given longings who lecture one another on why it’s wrong to feel the way they do. Meanwhile, God is crying out to them, “I made you that way!”

We can’t repent our way out of these longings, but we can only satisfy them within the context of the Gospel. If we are go- ing to walk in the kind of resiliency and victory needed to face the ever-increasing onslaught of demonic deception and rage, these seven longings must be answered. Our temptation is to try to satisfy these longings in unsanctified ways. Of course, Satan is more than willing to accommodate us in this endeavor. Pulled by our sinful nature, we too often succumb to the lure of satisfying these longings in wrong ways. Fulfilling them in a right way will make us victorious in our hearts and enable us to resist pride, cov- etousness, pornography, the occult, bitterness, rage and the like. We are not to live without power and without hope.

Because Satan is master of the counterfeit, each longing finds a counterfeit fulfillment in our fallen nature. The young woman, looking to satisfy her God-given capacity to feel love, gives her heart and body to a young man who is struggling in exactly the same way. Both of them find temporary answers to eternal long- ings, but when the gloss wears off, they’re simply lonely together. Many a marriage has begun in such a manner, only to dissolve


 

later when mere physical attraction cannot withstand the pres- sures of children, a mortgage, or a lack of common interests. In another example, the busy executive, fully aware of his capacity for greatness, misinterprets greatness to mean worldly acclaim. Twenty years later he finds himself at the top of his career. Hous- es, cars and travel are at his disposal. In a moment of brutal hon- esty, he admits that it all leaves him empty. He reached for the brass ring and found it attached to nothing.

Our newspapers and neighborhoods are full of stories just like this. Since Cain killed Abel, people have had one wrong idea after another as to how they could fulfill the longing to make a difference. In the end they find themselves disappoint- ed, empty-hearted, and hating the very longings that got them there. Consider for a moment how God must feel about this; He created these priceless longings only to watch men and women pursue a false fulfillment. How He longs for His people to posi- tion their hearts and their hunger rightly, and in doing so, to en- counter the surprise of their lives—the pleasures of God which satisfy beyond measure.

 

ETERNAL LONGING

Not only are our longings universal, they are eternal. They are not limited to our relationship with God in this age. God did not intend for our longings to go away after this life. In fact, they and their fulfillment will be even greater in the age to come. In this age there will be moments when we experience great things in God. These satisfactions are God’s beautiful gift to sustain our hearts. Much of life can seem devoid of the experience of God’s touch, and even a little movement of His Spirit toward ours results in moments of great satisfaction. Even though these experiences are God-given and impacting, they are still tempo- rary and need to be repeated. Periodic touches from God give us strength to continue on in our race. The remembrance of them keeps us reaching to experience them yet again. All of this works together in God’s divine plan. He touches tender and


 

vulnerable areas of our hearts and these divine touches stay with us for a season. We long, His presence comes, and when it lifts we are left more in love, with more longing for Him than we had before. The Creator places longings within us which can only be answered by and in Him. He then answers the longings in part, giving us just enough satisfaction to sustain us in the pursuit, and leaving just enough of an ache to keep us on the journey. The nature of being wooed demands an ebb and flow of desire and satisfaction. A billion years from now, we will still long for these things. They will play a key part in the way we will be fascinated by God for eternity.

Why did God place these longings within us? Surely He knew we would run to and fro, finding temporary relief in coun- terfeit answers. Getting an understanding of the nature of these seven longings and God’s desire to be their sole fulfillment helps us understand both our struggle and our purpose in life in a whole new way. The longings are dynamically connected to who God is, and no amount of makeshift or false pleasures can compare with their ultimate fulfillment. Each longing is a means by which we can understand God more deeply, just as it is an essential part of His beauty in our lives. The pleasures we gain when we allow God to fulfill our longings are eternal—they will last forever and ever.

 






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